Wikipedia Founder Still Believes Blockchain Is a Bubble

American entrepreneur and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, has told Bloomberg that Wikipedia will never conduct ICOs or hold cryptocurrencies. He also said that blockchain is a bubble and people are only attracted to it because of the hype surrounding the new technology.

Wales: Yes to Blockchain, No to ICOs

Interestingly, Wales gave this interview while he was attending ‘Blockshow’, a blockchain conference in Berlin. When asked about it, he said, “I have reservations about blockchain. It’s a super-interesting technology, but it’s clearly a bubble with a lot of mania and hype around it. People pay me to give speeches, so I flew to Berlin.”

Wales also spoke against ICOs in an interview with CNBC in October 2017. “There are a lot of these Initial Coin Offerings which are in my opinion are absolute scams and people should be very wary of things that are going on in that area,” said Wales. However, he added that blockchain technology was interesting and would be “with us for some time to come”.

Wikipedia & Cryptocurrencies

Wikipedia collaborated with Coinbase in July 2014 to accept Bitcoin donations. The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the organization that hosts Wikipedia, stated, “Using Coinbase, a bitcoin exchange, we’re able to immediately convert bitcoin to U.S. dollars, requiring minimal technical implementation on our end.”

Last year, Bitcoin was one of the most searched keyword according to Google Trends. People were searching “How to mine Bitcoin?” and “How to buy Bitcoin” via Google. Similarly, the article on Bitcoin was the ninth most popular Wikipedia article last year. It was created on January 2009 and has more than 15 million views.

“For our dear readers who can’t make heads or tails of this novelty: Bitcoin is as good as gold, shinier than lead, bubblier than tulips, held deep in the mines, and driving people nuts,” wrote Wikipedia’s Senior Editor JFG.